I think I am beginning to see why they tried to rush the bailout...so we wouldnt have time to figure it out

This essay has an interesting insight into who is getting bailed out and what we are bailing out....and it looks like it's their stupid....and all that wealth that is going to disappear wasnt really there to begin with.

Let Risk-Taking Financial Institutions Fail

...."Do not be fooled. The $700 billion (ultimately $1 trillion or more) bailout is not predominantly for mortgages and homeowners. Instead, the bailout is for mortgage-backed securities. In fact, some versions of these instruments are imaginary derivatives. These claims overlap on the same types of mortgages. Many financial institutions wrote claims over the same mortgages, and these are the majority of claims that have "gone bad."

At this point, such claims have no bearing on the mortgage or housing crisis; they have bearing only on the holders of these securities themselves. These are ridiculously risky claims with little value for society. ...."

If you don't think you will be personally effected the you are obviously in need of Q-Tips, some one to pull your blinfold off and an education.

That is a good video. I think people are understanding the potential impact on everybody. But I think that the initial bailout plan was too broad a reflex action and that the discussion that is being forced now will create a better bill. Not every business needs to be saved to protect the rest of us.

Caslon, I read that Time article before and I have to say that despite their respectable degrees, the authors produced an incredibly incoherent essay. After complaining, “The bailout will involve a transfer of wealth — from the American people to financial institutions engaging in reckless speculation,” and saying, “The government should not intervene,” they propose a government intervention! They want the government to intervene to buy mortgages from banks. That intervention will transfer wealth from taxpayers to the lenders (the ones who loaned the money for all these transparently bad mortgages) who engaged in reckless loan practices! The incongruities between their complaints and their proposals are astonishing.

Aside from their essay’s incoherence, their proposal would help liquidity, as would the Paulson bailout. The difference is that their plan would give the government tons of bad mortgages, since the mortgages’ values are easier to assess and the banks would want to keep the mortgages they’d otherwise profit off of (assuming the government isn’t paying a premium on these things, which it better not be). The Paulson plan would increase market confidence generally, and would pay for itself, or at least a significant part of itself, as eventually the government could sell back the assets they purchase. Their plan would give the government tons of bad mortgages that nobody else would ever buy. The government would have to make do with the pittance you make off of foreclosure sales.

Plus, their idea would only help the credit of the mortgage lenders – and “let[ting] risk-taking financial institutions fail,” since those aren’t necessarily the lenders, would harm credit market confidence and thus fail to help liquidity as much as Paulson’s plan. Their idea for the government to increase their loans to deposit banks won’t change that result – the credit crisis isn’t because the banks can’t get enough from the Feds, it’s because none of them are loaning money to non-bank parties because of the crisis in confidence.